182 PEOSE HALIETJTICS. 



down the names of these ' thundering chiefs'* to poste- 

 rity as mighty men of valour ? It was the pre-eminence 

 of GoUath of Gath whom David slew, and of all those 

 apocryphal giants of our nursery whom Jack did not 

 slay — ^pre-eminent height ; each man of them was ^us 

 T6 fiiycK re, big and brave, as Calliope, describing her 

 arch-hero Agamemnon, takes care to tell us : — 



. The king of kings, majestically tall, 



Towers o'er his fellows and o'ertops them all, 

 Like some proud buU that round the pasture leads 

 His subject herds, the monarch of the meads. 



Thus Homer, softened by Pope, sings of the Greek ge- 

 neralissimo, F. M. Agamemnon, in days when the chief 

 points of rider and horse were the same, and consisted 

 in size, weight, and sinew; when bravery was nothing 

 without plenty of brawn to back it ; when chivalry was 

 accurately measured by expanse of shoulders, and a very 

 small fraction only of the one added cubit to any man's 

 stature conferred the privilege, as it conferred the power, 

 of looking down, viro^rjZrfv, on the rest of the world, and 

 treating it supremely ' de haut en bas.'t Now, though 



aut ambitiosi, aut omnia ad suam potentiam revocantis.' Sopho- 

 cles fathers it upon Ajax, who thus expounds it: 



°Oti 

 o r' i)(6pos rjjiiv is TOfTovS ixOapreos 

 as Kat <pLkTja-(av aSdts, es re t6v f^tkov 

 TO<rav$^ viTovpyav w^eXetv j3ouX^(ro/xat 

 G)ff ai€v ov fxevovvTa. 

 The maxim however is equally worthy of any of these hogs in 

 armour. 



* 2TpaT7]yoi em^povTrjTOt. 



t His size made Ajax so overbearing to Minerva, as to decline 

 her proffered aid on the score of not needing it. Such audacity 

 at last provoked retaliation from Olympus : 



' And mighty towering Ajax (what can size 

 Agaiast the angry gods ?) distracted lies ;' — 



